Dante

Dante is the main character in the Devil May Cry series and is a half-demon. He is the son of Sparda and Eva, as well as the twin brother of Vergil.

Pre-games
Dante and his family were attacked by demons 20 years prior to the first Devil May Cry. As Sparda had left his family (or even died, as stated in DMC1 prologue cutscene) even earlier, Eva was killed, but Vergil and Dante survived although became separate.

Devil May Cry 3
At the beginning of the game, a younger, cockier Dante is seen in his yet-to-be-named shop. Arkham comes to his shop and invites him to the Temen-ni-gru on behalf of his brother Vergil by sending a few Hell Prides and Lusts to attack him. Dante effortlessly kills them all, and heads to the tower in search of an interesting time, and it is soon revealed that Vergil is attempting to reopen the portal to the demon world in order to obtain the full power of their father, which remains in the demon world within the Force Edge. Within the tower Dante encounters and defeats the demonic gatekeepers who were sealed away by his father, as well as the demon hunter Lady, who is in pursuit of her father Arkham, and the demon Jester, who guides him through the tower for his own reasons. Upon defeating most of these demons, Dante acquires their souls in the form of new weapons and combat styles. Dante, Lady, and Vergil eventually discover that Arkham is Jester, and was using all of them in order to open the portal and acquire the Force Edge for himself. After defeating Arkham in the Demon World, Vergil and Dante duel over the Force Edge. In the end, Dante claims ownership of the Force Edge, while Vergil chooses to remain in the Netherworld. Dante matures considerably during the game and, inspired by Lady's courage and commitment to her own family, continues his demon hunting business with a greater sense of purpose. They become partners, and he decides to call his shop "Devil May Cry", in reference to the phrase Lady said to comfort him over the loss of Vergil:
 * "Maybe somewhere out there even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one. Don’t you think?"

Devil May Cry
Devil May Cry begins with Dante being attacked in his office by a mysterious woman named Trish. He impresses her by easily brushing off her assault, and tells her that he hunts demons in pursuit of those who killed his mother and brother. She says the attack was a test, and that the demon emperor Mundus is planning a return at Mallet Island. She takes him to the castle there, but abruptly vanishes.

Dante explores the castle, slaying minor demons and finding weapons, and encounters the spiderlike demon Phantom while looking for a way to proceed through the castle. Dante wins the battle, but Phantom soon reappears and chases him through the halls. After further exploration and combat, Dante battles a demon named Nelo Angelo who impresses Dante with his confidence. The demon wins, but suddenly flees upon seeing the half-amulet Dante wears. The demon attacks twice more in later missions, and is eventually revealed to be Vergil, Dante's twin brother who has been brainwashed by Mundus. After Vergil's final defeat, his half-amulet joins with Dante's, and the Force Edge changes into it's true form, the Sparda.

Later, when Dante meets Trish, she betrays him and reveals that she is working for Mundus too. She lures Dante into a fight with Nightmare, a weapon created by Mundus. However, he manages to kill the beast, and when in the resulting chaos one of the pillars falls on Trish, Dante chooses to save her. Claiming he only did so because of her resemblance to Eva, he, angered at her betrayal, warns her to stay away. Yet when he finally confronts Mundus, who is about to kill Trish, Dante again chooses to save her and is injured. Mundus tries to finish him off, but Trish takes the attack instead. Dante's emotion at this tragedy unleashes his full power, allowing him to take on the form of his father. Dante and Mundus then battle in the Demon World, and Dante is victorious.

Dante leaves the amulet and Sparda sword with Trish's immobile body before departing, but just as Dante reaches the castle's hangar, Mundus returns and corners Dante, who is now back to his regular strength. However, Trish also returns and lends Dante her power, and Dante is able to defeat Mundus by sealing him away again. When Trish tries to apologize she begins to cry, and Dante tells her it means she has become human and not just a devil, because "devils never cry". Dante and Trish narrowly escape on a plane as the island collapses, and after the credits, it is revealed that Dante and Trish are working together as partners, and have renamed the shop "Devil Never Cry".

Devil May Cry: The Animated Series
Different from games, the anime shows some of the Dante's "regular" life. Although the season-long plot is revealed at the end of the series, rest of the episodes are self-contained and mostly united by the characters and universe.

The series begin from the one of the Dante's missions. He has to convoy a small girl called Patty Lowell, who supposedly came into a large inheritance, to her new house, where she will receive her property, according to the will. This turned to be a sham, and so she stayed in the Dante's office for the remainder of the series. Other recurring characters include Lady, Trish, Morrison (Dante's liaison), and Sid, lesser demon who is later revealed to be the actual antagonist of the series.

Devil May Cry 4
Dante first appears as an antagonist, crashing into the church of the Order of the Sword and shooting Sanctus, the leader of the Order, as well as slaying several of the Holy knights who tried to stop him. However, before he can confirm the kill, he is interrupted by Kyrie, who was knocked down in the process. Nero, DMC4 new lead and one of the Holy knights, seeing his love interest put in danger, enrages and steps in the battle. He was able to keep him busy until Credo (Supreme General of the Holy Knights and Nero's adopted brother) and Kyrie run to safety. After a brief fight with Nero, Dante reveals to him that the slain knights were actually demons. He leaves Nero with a cryptic message, saying that "We’re the same... you and... I... and them [fallen knights]... though I suspect you carry something different from the others". Then he leaves Nero and heads for Fortuna Castle.

Shortly after, Nero is given an order from Credo, his superior, to capture Dante. Nero catches up with the devil hunter in Mitis forest, but quickly loses track of him. Much later, Nero meets Dante in the third time in the Order's HQ. However, Nero is uninterested in fight as he was betrayed by the Order and has other goals now, but, even with that, Dante doesn't let him go forward. He claims that he is here for "the sword", which was originally his brother's and was found by the Order. As Nero is now in possession of it, Dante tells him to return it back so he would pass. Angered, Nero Devil Triggers and a fight ensues.

After a long battle, Nero gets the higher ground, but is easily knocked down by Dante. After he realized that Dante has been playing with him from the beginning, Dante tells him that Yamato is a key to the Demon world and he "can't have something of that kinda power floating around now". However, after Nero said that he needs it, Dante allows Nero to keep Yamato for some more time.

Some time after, Nero has been tricked by Sanctus (who has been resurrected and given demonic powers through the Ascension ceremony) to be absorbed into the Savior, a giant artificial demon created by the Order. Favoring the last request of Credo, who was mortally wounded when trying to free Nero from Savior's grasp, Dante goes on his quest to save Nero and Kyrie from the Order and the world (and Fortuna in particular) in the process. He escapes the HQ, which moments later collapsed because the God's power no longer sustained the building, and remembers the day then he was thrown into the whole business.

On that day, Lady came to his office, offering a job. She told him about the Order of the Sword - a small congregation in the castle town of Fortuna, which worships Sparda, much to the Dante's surprise.
 * Dante: "They worship a demon as a god?"
 * Lady: "Exactly."

She explained that there is a legend of Sparda, who served as a feudal lord at the city long time ago. She also said that although peaceful worship can't be condemned, the Order's members recently started catching demons and collecting Devil Arms, interfering with her work. Trish, hearing all this, departed, leaving the "see you there" message written by her lipstick on the mirror. There was nothing to do for Dante but to go to Fortuna after her.

Returning to present day, on his way to Castletown of Fortuna, where the Savior is now located, he closes three lesser Hellgates, kills the devils guarding them and acquires Gilgamesh, Pandora and Lucifer. Once in Fortuna, he confronts and finally kills Agnus, the Order's Chief Alchimist, takes Yamato from him and with its help, destroys the real Hellgate, the Gates of Fortuna. This act of destruction was noticed by Sanctus, who when tries to kill Dante with the Savior. However, unstead of killing Dante, the Savior becomes weakened itself, and weakened enough for the Nero to awaken inside of it. Dante then manages to hand over to him the Yamato and keep the Savior distracted when Nero tries to destroy the demon from the inside. He succeeds, and breaks free from the Savior with the Kyrie in his hands and the Sparda on his back. However, before Dante could pull out an apology from Nero, the Savior, now merged with Sanctus's remains, awakens. Nero gives Sparda to Dante and puts to rest this atrocity with the power of the his demonic right arm.

Shortly after, they're seen on the plaza before Opera house, where it all started. Nero thanks Dante, although the latter says that he had his own reasons for helping. Nero also offers him Yamato, to which Dante replies that he can keep it.


 * Nero: "What? I thought this meant a lot to you."
 * Dante: "That’s the only kind of gift worth giving. I want to entrust it to you, and so I am. What you do from here is your call."

Nero then asks if they will meet again, to which Dante says nothing, only waves his hand.

In the bonus cutscene, which opens if you succeed in protecting Kyrie from demons during the end credits, tells the end of the story for Dante. It begins with the front view of Lady entering Dante's shop. Once inside, she announces that Dante and Trish are her lifesavers, and hands over the case with the payment. However, when Trish opens the case, she finds only several banknotes, tied by a rope. When Trish asks why the payment for a "lifesaver gig" is so small, Lady replies that it was their fault the situation got out of hand. Trish then tries to bring Dante's attention to the matter, to which he replies "we take what we can get, right?" and accepts the payment. Suddenly, the phone on Dante's desk starts to ring. After answering the phone, Trish informs Dante that "it's a customer with the password." As Dante gets up and prepares to leave, Lady asks if she can come along as it has piqued her interest. Dante simply answers, "Do what you want. Don't expect to get paid". The trio then kick open the door, take a pose, and shoot in the air after Dante shouts: "Let's rock!"

Devil May Cry 2 novel
The second Devil May Cry novel, this story takes place immediately before the second game. Unlike DMC2, Dante retains his talkative, carefree personality from all of the other games and is allied with a woman named Beryl, whose parallels Lady and wields a Spiral-like rifle.

It is questionable whatever this novel is still part of the canon, however, there is no official statements telling overwise.

Devil May Cry 2
Dante aids the character Lucia in defeating Arius, an international businessman who uses demonic power and seeks to conquer the world by attaining the power of Argosax the Chaos. At the end of the game, Dante must go into the demon world to stop a major demon from escaping, but the gate closes behind him and he is trapped. With no way back to the human world, Dante heads even deeper into the demon world on his motorcycle. There is an extra scene after the credits, in which Lucia is sitting in Dante's office when she hears a motorcycle outside and rushes out to see who it is. However, is this Dante or not is never revealed.

Devil May Cry novel
The Devil May Cry novel was originally written to explain Dante's past, but with the release Devil May Cry 3, major contradictions removed the it from continuity. It takes place immediately before the first game, with Dante going by the alias of Tony Redgrave. He has numerous encounters with a man named Gilver, who hides his with numerous bandages and wields a katana. In the end, the man is revealed to be Vergil before he became brainwashed by Mundus.

Comics
Three issues of a comic adaptation of the first game was published by Canadian publisher Dreamwave Productions in 2004, but was left unfinished when the company went bankrupt in 2005. Although comic loosely follows the plot of the first Devil May Cry, it has major contradictions with the game (like Nelo Angelo's ability to speak) and thus is considered non-canonical. The third issue ended with Dante being knocked out by Trish.

Other Games
Dante has appeared in a number of other games. These include:
 * Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne - Dante is hired to kill the player. He is recruitable to the party later on the game. This was in due to Kazama Kaneko, the character designer for the series including him in the game. In return, he was brought into designing the Devil Trigger forms for Devil May Cry 3.
 * Viewtiful Joe - Dante is playable in the PS2 version of the game and he must save Trish. He appears in the PSP version of Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble as a bonus character. He lends his biplane, Carnival, to Captain Blue for a scene in one of his movies and he and the player race to defeat the boss of the stage. His costumes are standard, blue coat, underwear and Plasma. In Viewtiful Joe, his in-game cutscene dialogue is spoken backwards, as is the case with all other unlockable characters.
 * He is a character card in SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter DS.
 * He makes a cameo in Jedah Dohma's ending in Capcom Fighting Evolution.

Character Development
After the success of the first game, Capcom immediately began development of its sequel, Devil May Cry 2. Hideki Kamiya, who directed the first game, was not involved in the sequel's development and the new creative team took a different direction. Dante's character was changed so that he spoke little, and his cocky attitude was largely absent. He also had a habit of flipping a coin to make his decisions. The third game, Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, serves as a prequel to the first game and features a younger and cockier Dante. While developed by the same team that created Devil May Cry 2, Devil May Cry 3 was much better received than the previous installment for staying true to the original. Dante has considerably more dialogue during cutscenes, and players can verbally taunt monsters during gameplay.

Appearance
Like his father and brother, Dante has white hair. It remains in a fairly consistent style throughout his appearances, although there are a few minor changes. In Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 4 his hair is somewhat parted with his bangs brushed down; in Devil May Cry 3 his hair is simply brushed down, and in Devil May Cry 2 his hair is parted with his bangs in front of his right eye. Dante's most obvious design trait is his affinity for red-colored apparel, in the form of a long, two tailed coat. In Devil May Cry 3, the coat had zippers on the sleeves and a buckle around the waist, but after Dante's first battle with Vergil, the right sleeve is damaged and Dante tears it off. In the first game and the anime, the coat seems to be fairly plain with an upturned collar and short sleeves with black cuffs, though the coat lacks coattails. In Devil May Cry 4, the coat is given a much more detailed and stylish look, with oriental accents. Finally, in Devil May Cry 2, the coat has a more pronounced buckled collar and a black chestplate of sorts.

Personality
Earlier in the series's story, Dante is incredibly flippant, mouthing off to to the most powerful of demons, and he generally enjoys rubbing people the wrong way. He does mature as time goes by, but never really loses his attitude. Dante is seemingly unflappable, not showing fear whether he's being attacked by the Seven Hells in his office or being swallowed by giant serpent demon. Dante can seem at times to be uncaring or even callous, but actually has a very strong sense of justice and prefers to fight fairly. He can be counted on to do the right thing, even if he is makes cynical quips about it the entire time. Unusually, while he has issues with his own demonic side, Dante has little qualms about accepting demons who choose the side of good, such as Trish and Bradley. Though Dante is quoted as believing that "Humans are often worse than demons" in the anime, he refuses to kill full-blooded humans for any reason.

Despite verbally complaining about being in debt, Dante seems quite willing to perform missions solely for the good of them, and rarely enforces payment from poor clients. Many of his clients take advantage of this good nature of his, and leave bills for damages caused during the mission instead of paying for his services. He often borrows from Lady or gambles to repay these debts. However, he has extremely bad luck with gambling, and loses any game not involved with demon hunting. As a result he is horribly in debt to Lady, and is often left with no money at all after she takes her cut. However, in Devil May Cry 4 Lady actually pays him a small amount for his "assistance", implying that he no longer owes her money.

Dante has a fondness for pizza, and while he complains about olives, he always puts them on his pizza. His liking for pizza was added because the director believes that pizza is the "best food ever". In the animated series, he is also shown to favor strawberry sundaes. He has a habit of getting roaring drunk; in the first volume of the manga, he mentions getting so drunk that he proposed to a mop.

Abilities and Weapons
Dante possesses power that surpasses that of most demons. He has enough physical strength to punch through stone with little difficulty, and often overpowers demons much larger than himself. Dante is extremely agile, able to jump to great heights or even to balance on a flying rocket. He is able to channel his power into various physical objects, ranging from his guns to the air itself, and exhibits mastery of any weapon he picks up. Dante can instantly heal from nearly any wound; even the Hell Prides were surprised when he mostly ignored their attack on him at the beginning of Devil May Cry 3. Dante has been shown to survive wounds that would kill a normal human, such as being impaled through the chest with his own sword or being shot point-blank in the head. However, this ability can be worn down with continuing damage.

Thanks to his half-demon nature, Dante can release his demon power through his Devil Trigger. The appearance of this form varies throughout the games — in Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 3, the form is influenced by which Devil Arm he carries, while in Devil May Cry 2 and Devil May Cry 4 he has a pair of Devil Forms believed to be his "true" Devil form. These forms usually increase his speed and give him slow regeneration, and sometimes grant him new abilities, like flying.

In Devil May Cry 4, it is implied that Dante's strength is not due to his father, but from his will to protect others. After Dante defeats Agnus, Dante tells him that the reason he's inferior is because Agnus surrendered his humanity. It is suggested that any demon who possesses the will to protect and love others rather than to simply destroy will gain the full might of their demonic power, though Dante, Vergil, and Nero may simply be exceptions due to possessing both human souls and demonic power.

Dante's trademark weapons are the Rebellion, Sparda (Force Edge), and Ebony & Ivory. He has also used a shotgun in every title in the series, though its exact type changes throughout the games. Over the course of the past four games, Dante has collected a wide variety of weapons in addition to his regular arsenal, ranging from a curious electric guitar and several pairs of gauntlets to twin submachine guns and a demonic briefcase able to transform into 666 powerful forms. He keeps many weapons and trophies displayed within his office, so it is likely that he keeps old weapons there as well.

List of weapons

 * Recurring:
 * Sparda (Force Edge) (DMC1, DMC3, DMC4 (only as plot element))
 * Rebellion (DMC2, DMC3, DMC4, the manga and the anime)
 * Ebony & Ivory (all games (in DMC1 as Handguns), the manga and the anime)
 * Shotgun (all games (in DMC4 shotgun is named Coyote-A))
 * Devil May Cry:
 * Ifrit
 * Alastor
 * Grenadegun
 * Needlegun
 * Nightmare-β
 * Luce & Ombra (only in Legendary Dark Knight costume, non-canon)
 * Devil May Cry 2:
 * Merciless
 * Vendetta
 * Missile Launcher
 * Submachine Guns
 * Devil May Cry 3:
 * Cerberus
 * Agni & Rudra
 * Nevan
 * Beowulf
 * Shotgun
 * Artemis
 * Spiral
 * Kalina Ann
 * Devil May Cry 4:
 * Gilgamesh
 * Lucifer
 * Yamato
 * Pandora

Background
Dante's name comes from Dante Alighieri, who was a Florentine poet of the Middle Ages.

Trivia

 * Interestingly, Dante is impaled by his own sword in every installment (excluding DMC 2) by an opponent. In DMC, Trish pins him to the floor with the Force Edge. He also gets stabbed by Alastor. In DMC3, Vergil stabs him with the Rebellion. In the anime, Sid impales him through the heart on a cross. In DMC4, after hurling Dante into the Sparda statue, Nero spears him with the Rebellion.
 * Dante's English voice actor, Reuben Langdon, also voices Ken in Street Fighter IV, another Capcom character who also predominantly wears red, and motion captures Chris Redfield and voices Curtis Miller, both characters in Capcom's Resident Evil series.
 * Additionally, Dante's seiyu in the anime, Toshiyuki Morikawa, also voiced Ryu in the Street Fighter series.
 * Dante appears to have experience with instruments, especially those associated with rock bands, judging by his demonstration with the Devil Arm guitar Nevan. He also has a drum set (which is visible in every game) and a guitar (in DMC 3) in his office.